interview with George Drone | tattoo style | Greece
01/12/2014

Hello George Drone! Thanks so much for taking the
time to answer some questions for our magazine. It's a great
pleasure to have this opportunity to share some of my thoughts with
you... Thanks!
I can honestly say, that I'm absolutely one of your biggest fans out
there, I truly love and admire you tattoo style. I guess talent
wasn't just a reason to start working as a tattoo artist, but...
Let's start with some basic info about you...

Hello Iva! I thank you for all this and your support to my work…
I don’t really believe in “talent”, I think mathematics, exercise
and studying is the answer...

Q: How old were you when you first got interested in art?
A: Hmmm.. well I started at around 5 but it got a bit more serious
around 14-15. It was when I started graffiti writing and sketching
to prepare myself as a mixed media tattoo artist that I wanted to
become later...

- Who is the person you're most grateful when it comes to
inspiration?
I am a jack of all trades person so many different types of artists
inspired me. My favorite fine artists are Leonardo Da Vinci, Pablo
Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jean Michael Basquiat, Jackson Pollock and
Francis Bacon. About tattooers, a bunch of good alternative artists
are out there but my top favorites are Buena Vista and Xoil.

Q: Did your family support you while you were starting out?
A: Fortunately, my family supported me in whatever I was into, even
with graffiti writing and tattooing. I got inked my first “big”
tattoo(portrait of a woman) from George Mavridis in Milano Tattoo
Convention 2013 on my forearm. When I got back and my mother saw
that she said “OH! Is this for real? … ? ah George, it’s nice but
what to say?!” We really had some big arguments about vandalism and
graffiti writing I did in my early age but they understood that I
wasn’t some kind of a hooligan but an artist...

Q: Did you tattoo yourself? hah
A: Haha as a matter of fact, I’ve done my first shades ever on my
leg, an old school rose... It was my 9th tattoo. I would never
tattoo myself because I find it stupid and selfish but I had to do
it.

- I know some artists did some crapy tattoos on themselves
and then did a magnificent cover up, like, hey look how much I've
accomplished... type of joke hahah
It was when I met Proki and asked him of an apprenticeship in his
studio, I hadn’t done any shadows on skin before so he suggested me
to ink a simple rose on me as an experiment and study. I like it
until now and I have never retouched it... Also I will never tattoo
myself again, tattooing is some kind of a ritual for me and
something is wrong tattooing myself, hahaha

Q: How much the drawing skills play a big role?
A: This is way too complicated with drawing and tattooing since
tattooing is applied arts and not a “real” form of art… It’s all
about learning your material and becoming a technique master... That
means that even if you are Raphael or Michelangelo on drawing n
sculptures you can’t transfer your skills on skin because you need
technique knowledge. You have to make your studies on your material
which means machines, needles, inks, skin types etc… It would be
wise if people first improved their fundamental sketch skills and
then started tattooing. Learning tattooing techniques is easy in our
days with rotaries and all this technology improvement, studying
arts is difficult because it never ends ;)

Q: How do you get inspired while keeping
a busy schedule?
A: That busy schedule is around European countries I’ve never been
before to New York so inspiration never stops! Nowadays
facebook, deviantart and art sites like that really make things
easy as hell… With 5 clicks in 1 minute you can travel from Van
Gogh’s gallery to Da Vinci’s gravure studies, to Museum of Louvre,
everywhere!

Q: I bet almost all of your tattoo creations are unique
pieces, do you draw sketches for each client or? Tell me more about
the making process.
A: Haha you are right, all of my tattoo designs are 100% unique and
personal for every client. I always arrange a “design” appointment
before the tattoo session. If customers are from some studio I’ll be
a guest, then we discuss the thing via mail or FB and I try to
figure out what do they really want. Sometimes customers want to
express situations, feelings and personal experiences they had but
they do it totally the wrong way.

That’s for me the most difficult part in my job-hobby, I have to
match my customer’s preferences, personality, idea he’/she gave me,
skin type and money-hours of the session we have… I save a lot of
time creating my designs in Photoshop having high quality references
for my work. Moreover I always make some stencil collage of designs
and patterns I like depending on the muscles and anatomy points of
my clients... Finally I make some freehand or freestyle touches to
be sure that nothing is missing there...

Q: Where are you located now?
A: At the moment I’m working alone and not in a studio. I have a
busy schedule abroad and its impossible to work
as a resident artist in a studio.

Q: Something that I really like about your
work is the fact that somehow every piece is quite recognizable to
the other ones you did. Maybe is the technique (Black N Gray) with
some of your cool pattern decors and details. I love it, honestly,
makes them very unusual. Do you want to put some personal note in
your style? Even with details, playing with different types of
shading?
A: Thanks for the kind words haha, it’s nice to hear that, having
tattooed only for 2 years :) The real reason I’m putting these
elements is that I always feel the lack of some background or
synthetically something goes wrong... So something must be done to
harmonize the whole thing… Another reason I’m making weird actions
like pattern on both background and theme is the need of some unique
idea.. the need of approaching the real thing... art

Q: Your black and gray work is simply outstanding, not that
you're not good with color ink, but... do you prefer black and gray
tattoo style?
A: Haha, as a matter of fact I prefer color works and mixed media
related stuff, but I live in Greece(not Russia ;) ) and I’ve learned
to make solid tattoos. That’s the reason you saw my first color
works after my guest spot in Iron & Ink, Denmark, because people
there actually are white! 40-45 degrees heat in summer and dark
skins are major problems here... It’s not on me, if something has to
be tattooed, it should stay there and not fade out in some years if
we respect our customers, Also I prefer simple and decent shapes and
details even if it has to be a color work, I never forget I have to
deal with human skin and not my clipboard notebook!

Q: I saw an amazing portrait of Teya Salat, what was the
basic inspiration for this tattoo?
A: Hahaha, this was on my guest spot in Iron & Ink, Vejle, Denmark.
It was such a difficult case that I had to move my customer’s tattoo
session the day after because I had to spare the day explaining her
how a design can work and not destroy her leg. So, she first brought
me a disgusting woman muerto portrait with 4-5 roses on her face
that really looked like lettuces. I never work with tattoo
references, especially when they are SO bad applied, so I searched
with her a nice woman photography in order to change it to a muerto
project with 1 and not 5 realistic roses. Then I just put
Teya Salat,
since she’s one of my favorite models and I placed the rose on her
knee... It came out good and she was totally pleased ;)

- Would you say that portrait tattoos are
a way more challenging than the other?
No, I would say that everything has an overall artistic value. If you
talk about realistic and photorealistic portraits then the tattoo is
just a copy of what we see on the reference. The REAL challenge is
not only to make something different but to create something you’ve
never seen before, that’s the definition of art existence too.. A
portrait seems more difficult from customer's perspective, but it’s
way too easy even for you to apply what you see ;) It’s more
challenging for me to make unique ideas than to keep copying
photographs.

Q: I know artists are constantly trying to progress, would
you change something in your style, or start working on something
completely different? If so, what would that be? heh
A: Well, I haven’t mention that I’m tattooing for about 2 years and
until now I was constantly experimenting and trying new stuff that I
still do. I haven’t done anything of what I had in mind for
tattooing, and I hope I’ll complete some design ideas I have in
mind, I get easily bored to something, so hopefully I’ll try my best
and experiment more and more until I learn more myself and get
better to what I do, If I don’t I would prefer retiring tattooing
than just tattooing the same recipe for some money. It’s my passion
also and not my “job”, If I don’t feel like a project is going to be
good for me, I don’t make it to just earn some money.

Q: Being a tattoo artist, everyone thinks that it's a fun
profession, but sometimes it can be hard as hell, how do you
manage being constantly creative, on time with every client?
A: Haha, that depends on the tattooer, we are not all the same. For
me it’s a fun profession when applying the design and tattooing,
before this sometimes it’s more than hard as hell, hah! If customers
are open minded and open to ideas then it’s really easy and I just
have fun with my customer creating something that I like. When I got
a hard customer then I just explain him/her the way for a nice
design and what should be put into it, and I make them choose what
they would like, it’s not at all a problem!

- My readers will be super curious to know
how long does it takes to get an appointment?
Well, I’m not booked for long but that totally depends on customer’s
location, because as I told you I’m on the road, my e-mail is
Drone.80@hotmail.com and my FB Page’s link www.facebook.com/dronart

Q: Keeping a busy schedule also means going on tattoo
conventions, how much those events helps you to get inspired by
meeting so many great fellas there and maybe learn something new?
Share some of the coolest experiences...
A: Unfortunately I’ve been only to a few conventions till now but
I’ve already arranged some really big and nice ones. True fact is that
if you’re a spectator and a fast learner then a big convention like
Milano’s might be a god’s gift to you because you can observe some
of the world’s top technique masters… My coolest experience until
now was Milano Tattoo Convention 2013(I think it’s the biggest
convention in Europe with London’s ). I met people I never imagined
I would meet and it was a huge experience for my life and my tattoo
career beginnings.

Q: What are your feature plans?
A: I’ve already arranged a lot of guest spots to some really good
tattoo studios with reputation in their countries. I’ll try to
attend some big conventions around Europe and
generally I’m planning to create my own personal style, because I
think a lot of work must be done for this. My next guest spots for
Dec-January are 10-23/December 2014 at Mahakala tattoo in Ravensburg-Germany,
9-21/January 2015 @ Nadelspiel 0711 in Stuttgart-Germany. for more
info and appointments you can just ask me on my e-mail, personal FB
profiles and Page.